Over the past three decades, Lowell Milken has founded additional nonprofit organizations, including the Lowell Milken Family Foundation and the Lowell Milken Center. In 2000, he was named one of America’s most generous philanthropists by Worth Magazine. Lowell Milken, the younger brother of Michael Milken, is co-founder of Knowledge Universe, a provider of early childhood education (ECE). He is also the founder of the TAP System for Teacher and Student Advancement, co-founder and chairman of the Milken Family Foundation, and a former senior vice president in the junk bond trading operation of Drexel Burnham Lambert,

Life and Business Career

Early life

Lowell Milken was born in Los Angeles to Bernard and Ferne Milken. He grew up in the San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles. He attended Hesby Elementary School in Encino, Portola Junior High School in Tarzana and Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, all in the greater Los Angeles area.

Education

Lowell Milken graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with highest honors from the University of California, Berkeley. He earned a law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, with distinctions of Order of the Coif and UCLA Law Review. .

Business career

After graduating from UCLA Law, Lowell joined the law firm of Irell & Manella in the fall of 1973 as an associate and specialized in business and tax law in the Los Angeles-based office.

In 1979, he joined Drexel Burnham Lambert’s High Yield and Convertible Bond Department, also known as the “junk bond” department. He served as a departmental senior vice president until he resigned in 1989. His duties were reported to be “mostly administrative,” but he also provided financial analysis of companies. He was not a registered representative with any securities exchange.

In March 1989, after a long investigation of Lowell’s brother Michael Milken, the government issued a 98-count indictment of Michael Milken, who was charged with racketeering and a “long list of mail, wire and securities frauds.” The indictment also named Lowell in two charges of racketeering and 11 counts of fraud. Michael Milken, in a plea bargain deal, pleaded guilty and went to prison. As part of that deal, the government dropped charges against Lowell Milken, but in March 1991, he was barred from working in the securities industry as part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

It has been suggested that the government indicted Lowell in order to put pressure on Michael Milken to settle the case against him, a tactic condemned as unethical by some legal scholars. “I am troubled by – and other scholars are troubled by – the notion of putting relatives on the bargaining table,” said Vivian Berger, a professor at Columbia University Law School, in a 1990 interview with the New York Times. In articles in the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times published in 1990, Lowell was characterized as an “unassuming family man” being used as a “bargaining chip,” indicted only to put pressure on his brother.

After years in the planning stages, in 1996, Lowell co-founded Knowledge Universe with Michael Milken and Larry Ellison. In 2003, they became the sole owners of the company. In the United States, Knowledge Universe is the largest early childhood education company and operates under the KinderCare Learning Centers, Knowledge Beginnings, CCLC, The Grove School, Champions and Cambridge Schools brands. Internationally, it oversees early childhood education, K-12 education and post-secondary education programs and is headquartered in Singapore. Lowell continues to serve as vice chairman of Knowledge Universe Education and he is Chairman of Knowledge Universe Education Holdings Inc.

Summary

Source:wikipedia